


glass pearls and sea shells

by singtome



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Aris has a bullshit tolerance of zero, During/Post-TDC, Fishing Adventures, Love Confessions, M/M, Or hammock in this case, Realization Of Crush, Self-Denial, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, sarcasm as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 17:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16999866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singtome/pseuds/singtome
Summary: "Aris’ lips twitch as if they’re forming words of a mind still tied up in dreams. Something strange happens in Minho’s chest in that moment, and he thinks,This might be an issue."In the interlude; Safe Haven grows on around them, thriving. Minho ponders the meaning of everything as new developments form in the shape of a sandy haired boy, sea glass, and cowboy figurines.





	glass pearls and sea shells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comebacknow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebacknow/gifts).



> Who requested Safe Haven post-TDC, and Minaris during TDC. Happy holidays, hon, I really hope you enjoy this!!

-

 

Minho’s feet sink into the sand, and seafoam curls around his toes. He looks out into the vast, open sea, and briefly imagines the gentle tide coming in and taking all of Safe Haven away with it.

It is impossible; they’ve built the settlement too far from the beach for that ever to happen. Except for, of course, if you take into account the possibility of a dreadfully large storm. ( _Hurricane season_ , Vince had muttered once, hammering pikes deep into the earth, supporting them with stones fastened like a wall around them, _We gotta build for hurricane season, so that we’re protected when it comes._ When Minho asked when that would be, Vince hadn’t answered. To this day he still wonders if he even knows).

The huts are tough, not as much as they could be, but they’re enough for now, at least. Since this is the dry season, says Jorge, who sounds a little more like he knows what he is talking about, they’re safe from any ravenous weather. With Brenda’s sagely nod of support, something deep inside of Minho feels more inclined to trust them, if he is to be completely honest.

 _In the future there will be more,_ is a phrase that he’s heard countless times since jumping ship on to the island. _More. Future_. Everyone certainly loves to romanticise about the future, turning in their sleep and whispering sweet nothings to themselves like some love-addled teenage girl. Which is fine – he _gets_ it. You know, stability and all that good stuff. Sure. _Fine_. But Minho comes from a thousand ache stone jig-saw puzzle in the middle of the desert, where the next day could be earth-shatteringly life-changing, or it could not.

(Mostly, it was not. Until one day when it was.)

As of right now, he is perfectly happy with breathing.   

 

 

A seagull lands in front of him, its sharp talons curling into the dark, hardened sand. Its beady eyes look about the shoreline as if it doesn’t quite know how it got here, and where it came from. It stares up at Minho, and, what? How the hell is he supposed to know?

The bird squawks at him quite loudly, and Minho stiffly flips it off, not knowing how else to respond.

It flies away, offended, leaving him standing on the drying sand, skin over-warmed from the cloudless sky. He sighs, turns and collects his shoes, and starts back toward camp. 

 

 

“How on earth did you manage to break your finger?” Minho hears, upon entering the tent. Pulling back the curtain reveals one of Brenda’s rescue children, specifically small-with-brown-hair number twelve, also known as Gally’s black bag guard dog, seated gingerly up on a table in front of a very confused Jorge. The boy’s tiny pinkie finger is red, cooling pack beneath it, which he lays almost shamefully on his lap. His head hangs low.

“Sorry, Mr. Jorge,” the kid mumbles, miserably, “Just wasn’t being careful.”

Jorge’s features instantly soften, eyes growing warm and mouth pinching upward in the corners to bring back that familiar, wide grin. The kid’s shoulders relax instantly. While this is happening, Minho takes the opportunity to sneak around to Thomas, taking a seat on the wicker stump beside his bed.

Thomas still hasn’t woken up, because why would he? It’s only been seven weeks. Minho comes to visit him from time to time – i.e., at least once a day – hoping on the walk up that this time he will be sitting up in bed, Jorge and Brenda and whoever happens to be watching over him that day, sitting around with him, smiles on all their faces, and laughter in the air.

He never is, and they never do. Minho is just an idealist like that sometimes.

“It’s alright, _mijo_ ,” Jorge says, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “You aren’t in any trouble. Why don’t we get that bandaged up, hm? Aris –” Jorge swings around and calls to the other side of the hut – Minho jumps, not realising there had been anyone else in the room. It turns out Jorge hadn’t, either, given the way his eyes narrow when they land on Minho – “Erm. Aris?”

“Yes?” Aris’ pale face peers out from behind another curtain – the one they keep the supplies behind – like a ghost, dark eyebrows raised in question. His eyes glance over Minho once, quickly, but do not linger. Minho is here so often that he may as well be a part of the equipment, another clear bottle on the shelf.

Jorge says, “Look after Alex for me,” and waits for Aris’ affirmative nod.

And then. And _then_. Minho sees the way his feet catch against the floor like he means to leave yet the majority of him reconsiders as he pivots in the direction of Thomas’ bed, and his lips press into that concerned-but-trying-not-to-show-it grimace Minho has come to know all too well. The familiarity continues as the air stiffens and Jorge’s top lip twitches in the left corner, and his nostrils flare briefly, and this is how it usually is when he or Brenda or Vince – god help the poor man has _tried,_ at least – gently suggest he go help Gally with setting down newer foundations, or Harriet with collecting firewood, or Sonya with whatever it is she’s appointed herself in charge of that day.

And.

Minho is tired.

His hands are blistering for the first time in his entire life, and his back aches when he contorts himself into his hammock every night, waking up with it worse the next day. He just wants a minute to sit and not have to do anything at all. The feeling is already foreign enough that it leaves a sour taste in the back of his tongue, restless tension in his elbows and knees tagging along as a plus one, and he would just _rather not,_ today.

“Actually, I could use some help,” a voice pipes up to the left, surprising them both. It takes Minho an embarrassingly stilled moment to realise it is Aris who spoke.

“Malcolm wants some shelves to be re-organised, and a few boxes moved around, and.” Aris shrugs. In one of his hands he has is a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of gauze in the other, and zero intentions of elaborating. Jorge doesn’t seem to expect him to. On the table, Alex coughs, somehow managing to do so petulantly. Minho can relate. 

“Sure, of course,” Jorge claps his hands, which in Jorge speak means a number of different things, but in this very moment translates to, _Goodbye, you kids take care,_ and exits the tent.

Minho feels Aris’ eyes on him, then, in the new quiet of the room, and decides to pretend to be tying his shoe. This works for a solid couple of minutes until he runs out of laces.

Aris breaks the science a moment later. “He’s mostly the same,” he says, attention focused on the broken pinkie. Minho looks up at the sound of his voice, and Aris continues, “He mumbles in his sleep from time to time, but it’s usually all the same things.”

 _(Dreams_ , Malcolm had explained once, _Coma patients dream when they’re asleep. Sometimes they can be very hyper-realistic._ Then he placed a hand on Thomas’ forehead and said, _I wonder what he’s dreaming about now._

Minho left the tent, rather than stick around and brainstorm. He is never around to hear the mumbling first hand and is only ever debriefed on it later. However, he can always guess what Thomas is more than likely dreaming about.)

With the quick rip of medical tape jolting Minho from his thoughts, Aris says, “Doc reckons he’ll wake up soon.”

Aris is looking at him now, still bandaging up Alex despite his eyes resting solely on Minho. He isn’t quite smiling. Minho briefly wonders if he believes it himself.

Minho clears his throat, sandwiching his hands between his knees, “Good that. We could use some more help around here when he finally decides to get off his lazy ass.” He adds the last part in hopes that Thomas might just wake up only to punch him in the arm.

Aris grins, turning back to Alex. “Speaking of,” he says, “I wasn’t kidding when I said there’s stuff to do.”

Work. Okay, good. As long as there aren’t any hammers involved, the manta of metal pangs slowly beginning to eat away at his mind, Minho thinks he can manage to help around the infirmary.

“Right, boxes. Yeah,” Minho stands, dusting his pants off.

Aris tells him he will be with him soon, and Minho gives a lazy, two-fingered salute before going to wait behind the curtain. Their storage unit is, honestly, impressive. What they didn’t bring with them from the right arm consists of natural remedies, and medicines and painkillers someone managed to steal from WCKD. Which is fantastic. Those are neatly labeled, and off to the right on their own shelf. It’s good; Minho knows where to avoid looking.

Interacting with Malcolm is an entirely different experience than the med-jacks in the Glade. A qualified medical professional is, he guesses, handy to have, especially given Thomas’ situation. Even if his pleasant bedside manner and friendly disposition feel a bit bizarre than what Minho, and many others, are used to, he is glad they have him.

( _What’s wrong with me?_ Freddie had moaned once, after Minho and Newt half-dragged him over to the med-jacks after a very bad day in the maze, sweating buckets and on the brink of an absolute meltdown.

Jeff, outlandishly calm and staring at him as if he were stupid, said, _You’re missing three toes, man._

Freddie wailed, _Will I be able to walk after this?_

Jeff shrugged, and said, _I mean. You’ll probably be fine, but I wouldn’t keep my hopes up too high. Just in case.)_

In a way, he almost misses the old days. Clint and Jeff bandaging up Gladers left and right, not really knowing what they’re doing, but doing what they can given the circumstances. Everyone was on the same level that way. No one knew more or less than anyone else. If anyone claimed to, they were probably the next ones to end up in the deadheads, from running into the maze or landing on a spike or getting too close to the box because _they knew better._

And now they’re surrounded by people who genuinely do know better, and while it might be fun to watch Gally’s face turn red whenever someone over the age of twenty-five tries to correct the way he is laying wood, or even holding a hammer, it’s getting a little old.

Minho picks up a random, innocent looking bottle of clear blue liquid, turning it over in his hands when he hears a low whisper from behind the curtain.

“So, are you going to tell me how you actually broke that?” Aris says.

It is quiet for half a minute, the type of silence where one person is waiting patiently for the other to speak, whenever they are ready. Eventually, a small voice says, “It’s okay, Mr. Aris.”

“If Matthew is picking on you again –”

The sudden brashness in Aris’ voice surprises Minho. It isn’t a tone he’s heard much coming from him, or at all, really. It is certainly a strong juxtaposition from what he’d been used to.

“It’s _okay_ , Mr. Aris,” Alex is insisting, just a vocal inflection short of whining, “Really. You don’t need to worry.”

A beat passes, and then Aris says, “Alright,” softly, “But you know, if anything happens you just come straight to me, okay?”

A quick thump; small feet in shoes a little too big hitting the floor, and a strange, light _clink_ he doesn’t recognise. “Promise,” Alex says, and the tent is quiet again. Not a minute later Aris joins him, shoulders straight and face carefully blank. 

“Everything okay in there?” Minho asks, tossing the vial from hand to hand.

“Yeah,” Aris shakes his head and sighs, “ _Kids_ ,” as if it a) explains everything and b) isn’t exactly what he is, himself, at the end of the day.

(Though, he supposes, did they stop being kids the first step into the maze, or before? Or perhaps it was five months ago, locked away inside a cold cell at WCKD headquarters, Aris forcing himself in front of Sonya after she vehemently spat on a guard for touching her, and bargaining with that very guard to receive all the punishment that she would have.)

Minho places the bottle back where he found it, turning it so the label displays forward – _Bliss_ : _For pain,_ it reads – and clears his throat, “So. Boxes?”

Aris snaps to attention. “Boxes! Yes. Okay, so …” and thus Aris launches into a big spiel about which boxes Malcolm wants to be moved, or unpacked and why, and which needed to go into storage for whatever reason. Honestly, Minho began to tune out after thirty seconds, and instead watches Aris pick up bottles and put them back, and gesture wildly around the small room at this and that. The alcove is very small, almost too small for two people to be in at once, and it is very dim, and Aris’ arm continuously brushes against him as he talks, and his vision is starting to warp the walls inward.

“Yeah, yeah. Move the boxes from A to B and don’t break anything,” Minho says, cutting Aris off mid-long-winded spiel.

“I –” Aris pauses, blinking. “Uh, yeah. You got it.”

Minho salutes him one more time, carefully picks up a stack of three boxes and making sure not to bump Aris while doing so, and exits stage right. The minute the curtain falls shut behind him and his shoes hit the grass, the tide rolling in gentle waves along the shore and filling the air with salt, he feels as if he can breathe.

Alex is meticulously sorting stacks of wood into various piles as a woman stands by him and tells him what to do. Minho walks closer and, just as the boy turns to pick up another log from the stack, he sees them: two pale green stones wrapped in yarn, tied around a belt hoop, clinking together as he works.

 

 

When he sits down and thinks about it, that wasn’t the first time Minho had seen those small, green stones floating around Safe Haven, but it is certainly the first time he’s thought anything of it. At first, he’d just assumed it was something people had brought here with them, a talisman or whatever, Minho has no idea. Maybe it was popular among the general population, to carry around key charms for good luck. It isn’t a foreign concept, not in the slightest.

In the Glade, kids would carve this and that out of wood, either for something to do or simply just to express themselves in ways they have forgotten how to. Others would find interesting shaped stones in the trees among the dead heads, decide this was their lucky rock, and proceed to carry it around in their pockets for the rest of eternity.

One time, during a round in sector 6, Ben stopped during a snack break to cut a piece of the ivy off the wall. Minho watched, perplexed, as the boy gently thumbed at the vines and afterwards wound it into a hole in his shirt collar. Minho never asked any questions.

(He still wonders about the cold, non-reaction that ran through his veins, when he and Thomas found the remains of Ben’s clothing among the thirty-foot-tall, rust-coated blades, when he lifted the torn shirt and a small cut of ivy fell out.)

So, anyway, he gets it. People need trinkets to give spiritual attributes to, and seek comfort in personified objects.

Still, by day four, it’s begging to get a little annoying. Now that he is aware of the trinkets Minho cannot ever be _unaware_ of them – he will walk through camp and hear the district clicks left and right, he will turn and light will shine off one around a person’s neck, or wrist, or belt-buckle, because why the hell not. May as well put them absolutely _everywhere_. Brenda wears a thumb-sized opalescent stone around her neck, Frypan a green one and Jorge keeps his around his wrist. He even spots Gally, of all people, with a clear blue stone tied to his belt loop.  

Aris has a similar bracelet to Jorge around his wrist, and Minho stares at it when he visits Thomas. There are three stones on his; blue, green, and opal.

Day five he works side by side with Sonya. Her long, sun-bleached hair blows about in the wind, and occasionally revealing a small, green stone on a chain she wears just below her collarbone, catching Minho’s eye whenever she turns toward him. Eventually, he has enough, and says, “Nice necklace.”

Sonya looks up at Minho, in the middle sewing of two tarps for newly erected huts, and smiles.

“Thank you, Minho,” she says and offers nothing else. Minho feels the beginnings of irritation bubbling up inside him.  

He pushes on, acting casual, clamps two ends of the fabric together with his knees. “I’ve seen them a lot around camp, lately. Recent trend, or?” Minho jokes, hoping she’ll bite.

Sonya shrugs, biting her lip in concentration and she sews the tarp, and says, “Yeah, they’re nice, huh?” obviously hadn’t heard him.  

Minho sighs and decides not to press further.

By day seven the clicks begin to sound like boulders smashing together on steel chains, the light reflection shooting into his eyes like daggers, blinding. He hammers away with Gally and listens to Frypan and Brenda’s conversation behind him, taking rhythmic, deep breaths, in out in out. It almost works, and he almost doesn’t snap at Gally when he asks him a simple question, throwing down the tools and storming off while everyone blinks after him in absolute perplexion.

The last straw happens when he goes to visit Thomas at the end of the day. Minho finds a string of them tied around Thomas’ wrist, blue, green and pearly opal in the middle, and suddenly he knows.

 

 

Funny enough, it is the district way in which the stones are tied together that tips him off first. One night, last week, Minho had been sitting with a group around a fire, talking and laughing and enjoying not being locked up and used as human guanine pigs for the rest of their miserable lives. Aris sat beside him, occasionally contributing to the conversation in that quiet voice of his, and weaved rope together for lanterns. Minho doesn’t know why he had been so transfixed on the way his long, skinny fingers wove the yarn together to create a pattern of intricate knots. By the time Aris was done, it looked like a spider’s web of diamond-shaped holes, some circles scattered around in perfect placement.

Minho wanted to ask where he’d learned to do that, but someone else chimed in and beat him to it. It was also in that moment that Minho realised he had been staring.   

Finding Aris is strangely easy. There are only a few places Minho knows him ever to be; the infirmary, the beach, or with Sonya, or Harriet, or both. Crossing the latter and the former off the list (given he has just come from the said infirmary, and Harriet and Sonya can be very plainly seen canoodling at the edge of camp) that only leaves him with one option.  

Sandy hair and hunched shoulders slowly come into view behind a spattering of large rocks along the beach’s shoreline. Aris sits on one of them, staring out into the ocean.

Minho doesn’t know if he means to explode utterly, but it’s what happens.

“What the shuck is this?” he snarls when he reaches Aris, making him start.

Aris blinks up, shocked, eyes searching their surroundings as if trying to figure out where Minho popped into existence from. “Um ...” he says, “Sorry, what?”

His genuine confusion only helps make Minho angrier. Before leaving the infirmary, feeling Malcolm's eyes on his back, Minho had untied the bracelet around Thomas’ wrist and taken it with him. Now, he thrusts the small band in the air accusingly.

“This!” Minho spits. The gemstone and glass clink softly together, like a wind chime, “Why the shuck are these things all over the damn place?”

Aris’ face begins to twist into something between shock, confusion, and fright all at the same time. “I don’t …” he says, “I mean, I made them –”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“I make them to pass the time, and people liked them, so –”

“Well, I don’t like them. They’re _everywhere,_ and it’s pissing me the hell off!”

Aris gapes, “I –”

Minho turns and storms away before Aris could say anything else. Upon reaching the top of the beach, Minho finally unclenches his fist, where the chimes lay inside. The coiled rope is stained with blood.

 

  

In hindsight, he may have come down too hard.

Aris is conveniently not in the infirmary whenever Minho is there, nor does he see him around camp. At least, not as often as usual. He does his best to push the thought to the back of his mind and carry on with work as usual, hanging around Frypan as much as he can – the only person who, it seems, hasn’t been giving Minho strange looks out of the corner of their eyes when they think he isn’t looking.

That, or he is much better at hiding it.

He hammers away, does this and that for Jorge when he asks and begrudgingly does the same for Vince. He helps Brenda when she needs it – even when she needs to usher all the children into the infirmary for occasional check-ups, just to make sure everything is as it should be (Aris is, again, absent) and ignores just about everything else. On fishing days, he searches the shoreline.

Aris’ trinkets and charms quieten to a low click and occasional sheen in his general direction, and he doesn’t realise he is looking for Aris until the week draws to a close, and the entirety of Safe Haven is gathered around the bonfire at camp centre, for the weekly celebration.

( _To keep up morale!_ Jorge had explained once, jovially, and whatever. Minho doesn’t need a reason to drink bad DIY alcohol some twenty-year-old slapped together out of who knows what, and forget all of his problems.)

By the time the sun has set and everyone is gathered around the fire enjoying themselves, Minho’s palms begin to itch, and his knees are bouncing in tandem with his hammering heartbeat. Thomas’ bracelet burns a heavy hole in his pocket. Guilt has always been a sour taste in his mouth, a stone in his chest. Minho briefly considers asking the girls where Aris is if he didn’t think for a moment that Harriet would answer him with anything but a cold, daggered stare and Sonya. Well. Minho would very much like to keep a five-foot radius between himself and her small, nimble fingers _at least_.

(Back at WCKD, when they were prison pals, he once watched her dig her nails into the eye socket of a guard who put himself and his taser way too close to Aris’ body. They were sure to have their masks on all the time after that.)

“You’re looking glum,” Minho hears behind him, seconds before Brenda sits herself down next to him. Her shirt has a patch of dirt on it from the days work, and her hair is still tied up in the detailed braids Sonya put it in. Her eyes are warm and happy, and Minho instantly feels a little bit better. Just a little.

“Anything I can help with?” she asks.

Minho sighs, scraping the sole of his shoe against the sand, and shrugs, “No, most likely not.”

Brenda hums, thoughtfully, and says, “Well. If you ever need to talk.”

Minho turns to her and manages a smile. Her necklace shines in the light of the bonfire. He looks away.

“Yeah, sure.”

Brenda presses her shoulder against his, clinking their mason jars together, and Minho settles in for a long night.   

 

 

Three hours and one and a half glasses of terrible homemade beer later, the corners of the camp begin to curl in on themselves, and Minho is finding it very hard to remain perfectly still. He is laughing a lot more, at least, which is good, though Frypan’s jokes are always hilarious no matter where on the meter between _sober_ and _blackout drunk_ you are.

It is, of course, the absolute perfect moment to finally run into Aris – literally – after a week of zero contact and less than subtle avoidance.

Aris coughs a small _oof_ and reels back at the impact, eyes wide and shocked. They widen even more when he finally looks up and notices who he’s smacked into. Minho watches, stunned frozen, as the boy’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, like a fish caught in headlights, and sees the exact moment the decision formulates in Aris’ mind to make a run for it, and unfreezes.

“Wait!” he yells, maybe too loud, and before thinking better of it, reaches out to grab Aris’ wrist to stop him from leaving. “Wait, Aris, just. Hang on a second.”

Aris glances between Minho and Minho’s hand around his skinny, very brittle wrist ( _Dude needs more protein_ , Minho thinks, distractedly), dubiously. When Minho is sure he isn’t going to bolt he lets go.

“Listen,” he begins, shrugging his hands into his pockets, “I just wanted to, uh. To say I’m sorry.”

After a long pause, Aris frowns, “Okay?”

“I – l shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. It wasn’t …” Minho stops talking, the alcohol spinning his thoughts into a million different directions. One of them focuses on Aris’ freckles, and how they look as sad and confused as he is.

“Alright …?”

“It wasn’t anything about you,” Minho finally finishes, “I’m just. Everything’s …” he waves a hand to the air in general, hoping Aris will somehow understand everything he is trying to say. Whether he does or not is open to interpretation. Minho sighs, “What I’m trying to say is I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

Aris says nothing. He stares back at Minho with a strange look on his face, allowing the silence to stretch on between them. Minho guesses it’s what he deserves.

Breaking eye contact when it begins to burn and looking down at their feet, Minho notices the band around Aris’ wrist, almost identical to the one that still sits in his pocket, pulling him down to the earth.

Minho points it out, and says, “You know, they’re actually pretty cool.”

Aris frowns, eyes shifting to the side of them, as if he were expecting someone to jump out at any moment. “Uh. Thanks.”

“What’s ...” Because he is a little drunk, and competent thinking isn’t exactly a realistic option right now, Minho reaches out again and picks up Aris’ hand, tapping his index finger on the pearlescent one in the middle. “What’s that?”

Aris looks spooked, and his fist tenses, as if he wants to snatch his hand back but is fighting against the urge. “It’s opal,” he answers eventually, “They’re all over the place.”

Minho nods, “They’re pretty cool.”

The corner of Aris’ mouth twitches for the briefest of moments. “You said that before,” he says.

Minho blinks, “Yeah, that’s. It’s because it is.”

Aris stares at him, most likely considering every possible variable or rock, or stone, or coconut which could have hit Minho in the head. Finally, removing his wrist from Minho’s grasp, he slips both hands into the pockets of his shorts, and says, “I guess it is.”

His voice is low, and mouth sets into a thin line. Maybe it is the guilt still eating at Minho, or just the way the flames of the bonfire bounce shadows that dance across Aris’ face, curling around his cheekbones and catching at the corners of his mouth and under his eyes, that makes him look suddenly, overtly intimidating.

On the other side of the fire, a group laughs loud and obnoxious, expertly drawing attention to themselves. Minho uses this distraction to mumble an excuse that barely even registers to his ears, and leaves.

Aris does not watch him when he goes.

 

 

The next day, Minho puts the bracelet back where he found it, taking care to tie the knot tight around Thomas’ wrist. Before leaving Minho takes one last glance back to the corner of the room where Aris is working. His head is ducked low and focused on the current task, and Minho spots the slightest of smiles tugging at his lips.

 

 

Like someone’s come around and flipped a switch, Minho begins to see Aris around a lot more than he used to. He’s inside the infirmary at the exact times Minho visits, or he’s out the back, sorting stock when Minho turns the corner. He is by the camp helping Frypan and Brenda, or relaxing after a long day with the girls, he’s here and there and everywhere. It’s not inconvenient, exactly; more so the opposite. Runner’s intuition, or whatever you want to call it, is still very much present and at the forefront of Minho’s mind most days. Keeping track of where everyone and everything is around Safe Haven feels almost calming in its familiarity. Something to look back on, at the end of the day: everyone was where they needed to be, and nothing went horribly wrong today. Stupendous.

In a way, people watching feels like a necessity more than a simple way to pass the time. He likes to know when things are happening, and when there’s peace or tension among the community. Minho needs to know which areas to gravitate towards, and which to avoid. Emotions run high and low around Safe Haven, more than imaginable, pulling and tugging at Minho in all directions until he’s dizzy. 

More so, he finds himself following the gentle clinks and distant gleams of the talismans until it, eventually and inevitably, diverts his attention to Aris.

And.

Okay.

The guy is a _mess_ , that’s point number 1.

Point number 2 consists of the fact that he has no overall sense of self.

The amount of time Minho’s had second-hand anxiety attacks whenever Aris hoists a bound of logs or box up or whatever up without bending his knees is enough to knock ten years off his overall life expectancy _easy_ , not to mention the aftershock of tension in Aris’ shoulders or bend of his spine afterwards.

Every time, Minho plants his feet and bites his tongue, and continues with his task, fists balled.

It’s during the next campfire night, another week gone and sleeping beauty has still yet to wake, a high, bubbly laugh draws Minho’s attention across the sand to where Aris, his girls, and Jorge and Brenda sit around in a group. Aris has his head thrown back, face red even under the low glow of the fire before he proceeds to bury it in Harriet’s shoulder. His shoulders are quaking with uncontrollable laughter that carries on the wind and hit’s Minho in the face, expertly knocking something loose.

Minho realises, hard and fast, that he is watching Aris far more than any other member of Safe Haven.

Unfortunately, this epiphany also comes around the same time he clues into the fact that Aris is, or may very well be, avoiding him.

Spotting him everywhere is one thing – seeing him turn the other direction, conveniently every time Minho is within spitting distance, is another thing entirely. It would also be a far less irritating ordeal if Minho weren’t so tuned into the fact that this is happening, and that it is most definitely, one thousand per-cent, his fault.

But faults can be rectified. In theory, at least.

Aris is fighting with his hammock one night, and, from thirty paces away with eyes squinted against the darkness, the hammock appears to be winning. From his bed, he hears vague noises of anguish, along with a few choice curse words, and waits for the situation to resolve itself.

It doesn’t.

Sighing and kissing the warmth of his bed goodbye, Minho swings himself up and out, and quietly makes his way through sleeping bodies to Aris.

“Hey,” Minho says. At his feet, Aris starts. He remains crouched on the floor but turns his body towards Minho, staring up with wide eyes, clutching the hammock as if he’s been caught red-handed in a crime.

After a moment, Aris says, “Hi, Minho,” slowly, eyes darting around in the darkness.

“You, uh,” Minho says, staring at the scene before him with brief wonder, “You doing okay, man?”

“Oh.” Aris blinks, turning his eyes back to the fabric clutched in his hands as if he suddenly has no idea why it’s there. “Yeah,” he says, “I, erm. The rope snapped, and I. I’m tryin’ to fix it, but …”

He lifts the edge of the hammock and the frayed rope in both hands, presenting them to Minho in evidence. Minho bends down, slightly, and yep. Definitely broken.

“Do you want any help?”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” Aris says, looking dismayed, “Or me, really. Every time I tie it up again, it just falls. I need a longer piece, or I can join it with somethin’ else, maybe …” Aris carries on talking mainly to himself and Minho stands there, hands in pockets, listening to him babble. His voice is louder in the quiet darkness, accent slipping and sliding wherever it pleases, obviously heightened by fatigued.  

It’s late, and somehow Minho knows that Aris will most likely be at this all night, inevitably not getting any sleep at all, if he doesn’t intervene. Which is what leads Minho into telling him, “You can take mine.”

Aris looks up at Minho as if he’d just spoken another language.

“I …”

Minho waves a hand over his shoulder toward the general direction of his hammock, “You can if you want. That’s,” he points at the sad remains of Aris’ bed, “not going to get any better tonight.”

Aris’ eyebrows are bending so much that Minho worries they’ll fall right off his face if they go any deeper. “What? No, I couldn’t –”

“I can’t sleep, anyway. So. All yours,” Minho says and walks away before Aris can argue further.

 

 

The sound of waves and distant cries of gulls wake Minho in the early hours of the morning, right before the sun is due to climb over the horizon. Sitting up, he stretches cricks out of his shoulders and spine, shaking out his wrists and cracking his neck, and groaning at the feeling of sand beneath his clothes.

Most of the community is still asleep when Minho wanders back to camp, the few early risers going about their business in various degrees of quietness. Minho locks eyes with Malcolm on the way past the infirmary, and the man waves. After a second, Minho waves back.    

He doesn’t quite know what he was excepting, approaching his hammock knowing that he’d offered it to Aris the night before, but he’d more so imagined it being empty than what he actually finds. Curled up in sleep, knees to his chest and thin blanket pulled up to his chin, Aris is deep in sleep, mouth open a sliver and hair absolutely everywhere. His eyes flutter softly in his sleep, ears most likely catching the noises of the island all around them and beginning to pull him out of unconsciousness.  

Aris’ lips twitch as if they’re forming words of a mind still tied up in dreams. Something strange happens in Minho’s chest, in that moment, and he thinks, _This might be an issue._

 

 

It’s fishing day – Minho’s absolute favourite day of the week.

No, really.

Sure, the smell can be a little off-putting, but if you can get used to the stench of goat klunk on a hot day in the Glade, you can get used to anything.

It’s nice. Quiet and peaceful. Minho usually gets a boat to himself, either by chance or persuasion, and for a solid couple hours it’s just him and the vast, glittering ocean. With the sun reflecting off the waves and creating diamonds it’s easy to forget most of everything, out there. He never sees grievers or WCKD doctors or hears the screams of dozens of kids out on the water.

His best friend isn’t dead, and the other isn’t in a coma, out on the water.

Today is, of course, the day all that changes.

“Minho!” Someone calls out to him as he is preparing the boat, and Minho turns and squints against the sun to find Jorge jogging up the beach towards him. “ _Hermano!_ ” he says when he approaches, wide smile front as centre, panting a little against the effort.

“Old man,” Minho says, winding a rope around his elbow and catching it with his palm, “Slow down before you pop a hip.”

Jorge apparently has the good nature not to indulge the child, and move on like the reasonable adult that he is.

“Minho,” Jorge says, “Mind if I ask you a favour?”

Minho stops winding and looks up. “What is it?”

And Jorge, of all things, goes and says, “Would you mind Aris accompanying you this time? All the other boats are full, and I wanted him out on the water today.”

And that’s when he sees the man of the hour himself standing a little way behind Jorge, watching the two of them with something akin to dread in his expression. Minho drops a bag of bobbers.

“Uh,” he begins, voice pitching in the middle, “Actually, I, uh …” Minho struggles to come up with an excuse, any excuse, and Jorge takes the bait and snags.

“Aris!” Jorge says, waving over to Aris, who looks like he wants to leave. “ _Mijo_ , come over here.”

Aris comes over. Jorge claps down one hand on his shoulder and the other on Minho’s. It feels very much like he is making sure neither of them runs away. “Minho,” Jorge says, “has kindly volunteered to take you out on the water.”

Minho coughs. When did he agree–?

“Okay!” Jorge chirps, happy and loud, making Aris flinch. “Have fun, boys,” he says and disappears as quickly as he showed up. Minho blinks, feeling confused and faintly whiplashed.

Then he actually looks at Aris.

“Um. Do you know you have half the forest on your head?” Minho says.

Aris raises his eyebrows, and says, “Oh,” eyes widening, hand instinctively moving to the circlet of vines sitting like a crown on top of his head. “Right. Sonya put it there,” he says, with the casual disposition of someone who had forgotten the thing was there in the first place, but doesn’t feel particularly bothered enough to remove it.

Okay. Well, this is happening today.   

The sky is grey cast when they’re out on the water but the tide is low, and despite the colour there doesn’t appear to be a chance of rain. Which is great, as Minho would very much not like to add to the excitement of today’s events. Aris sits quietly and listens, nodding along to everything Minho is saying, posture straight and eyes attentive. He barely blinks. Minho wishes he’d look down, or over the water, or somewhere, feeling himself start to sweat under his gaze. It isn’t unsettling, not in the slightest, but Aris’ olive-green eyes trained solely on Minho makes him nervous and twitchy in a very inconvenient way.  

“Here,” Minho says, once he’s done taking Aris through the Basics Of Fishing, digging into the hessian bag beside him and handing Aris a lure, “Take this and stick it on the edge of the wire thingy and throw it in the water.”

Raising an eyebrow at the verbiage, Aris takes the lure and says, “Yessir,” already weaving the line through. Minho works very hard to keep still.

They sit in comfortable silence for a minute, but then Aris looks up from his line over to where Minho is weaving his – clumsy, butterfingers, terribly out of character that it makes him mad – and asks, “What _is_ that?”

“What?” Minho lifts up the lure, showcasing it in all its glory, “This? Definitely not the ugliest shucking thing you’ve ever seen, and don’t even think it for a second.”

Aris cracks a smile. “I mean,” he says, “I wasn’t going to mention it.”

“His name is Jesus,” Minho says, pronouncing it _hay-soos,_ “and I’ll have you know he is very sensitive.”

In his hand is the ugliest fishing lure on the face of the planet; an old figurine of a cowboy with a handlebar mustache and half its face mysteriously melted off. Someone has, somewhere along the line, stuck a piece of metal down the dead centre of Jesus’ head to turn him into a lure, not aiding his looks one bit.

Aris is grinning, eyeing Jesus like it is the strangest thing he’s ever seen in his life. Which is an achievement in itself.

“Where did you get that?”

Minho shrugs. “Jorge, probably. Not really sure,” Minho says. “He’s just around, all the time, and for some reason he always ends up in my kit.”

Aris hums, and for a moment it almost sounds like a laugh. “Maybe he’s your guardian angel,” he says.

“Dude,” Minho says, “If my guardian angel is a two-inch-tall cowboy with one eye then no wonder life’s so shucked up. Do you think I can put in a form to switch?”

This time Aris laughs, soft and under his breath. The sound makes Minho feel unusually proud. Aris is still wearing the wreath on his head. The clouds have begun to part and give way to the sun, and it casts leafy shadows across Aris’ freckled cheeks and nose.

Minho looks away and drops Jesus into the water.

Aris says, “Why, what’s wrong with Jesus?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Jesus,” Minho says, giving the line a little tug, “He’s. Well, he’s seen better days, but little shank’s pulling through well enough. I mean, he could’ve helped out a better a few months ago, but …”

The words slip out. Both Minho and Aris go still and quiet.  

“Do you, um,” Aris says after a few minutes have passed, “Do you remember much of it? WCKD?”

Minho drops a second lure into the water before answering. “Some,” he says, “It all just blends. Bright lights, old people in white coats.” Minho pauses, and admits, “Pain.”

It is so quiet he can almost hear Aris’ swallow. “Me too,” he says, “I remember being locked up and then taken away and then locked up again. But it’s … mostly all fuzzy before the. Before the train.”

Minho furiously wishes to change the subject, and regrets bringing it up at all. “Yeah,” he says, rolling his shoulders back in a mediocre attempt to shake the memories away, “Cell buddies, right?”

Aris looks at him for a long moment, gaze less piercing than usual. Eventually, his tight-pressed lips turn up into a small smile, and he nods.

“Cell buddies.”

“Hey,” Minho says, reaching forward and adjusting Aris’ grip on the fishing line, “Keep a tight grip on that. If you get a bite, you’re going to have to fight. The fish in these waters can be tough.”

Aris blinks and snaps to attention, instantly gripping the line tighter with both hands. “Right! Yeah, of course.”

“Oh, also …”

“Yes?” Aris says.

Minho grins, “You can relax. Slouch a little. This is meant to be the easiest job on the island.”

Aris raises an eyebrow, “Collecting reeds?”

“Collecting –” Minho glares. Aris’s posture remains as stiff as the five-foot metal pole shoved up his ass. “Don’t argue with me, okay? Today I’m in charge, kid.”

Aris’ eyebrows lift. “You know I’m older than you, right?” he says.

“Don’t care.”

Aris rolls his eyes, “Right,” he says, “Very sorry.” He doesn’t sound like it.

“Good that,” Minho says, and they slip into comfortable silence once more. It lasts for a solid thirty seconds, at least, until Minho’s eyes find Aris in the boat and trace the line of his shoulders, and he sighs, “You’re still stiff.”

Aris, half lifting his lure out of the water to check on it, because Minho hadn’t told him not to and he just thinks that’s what you’re meant to do, or he’s just trying to be overly annoying, and stares.

“What?”

“Can you just.” Minho lifts Jesus out of the water. He says, “Can you just _relax?_ ”

“I _am_ relaxed.”

“You look like you’ll snap in half at any moderately heavy wind.”

“This is just,” Aris waves a half lazy hand down his torso. Minho tries not to follow the movement, “My natural disposition. By the way, isn’t fishing supposed to be, you know. Quiet? _Relaxing_.” He leans on the word and tosses it back in Minho’s face like a beach ball. “You’re going to scare all the fish away,” he says.

“I think Jesus is doing a pretty bang up job at that already,” Minho says. Aris laughs.

“Hey!” Aris says, snatching Jesus out of Minho’s hand and cradling him protectively against his chest, “He can _hear_ you!”

The action, the dramatic, mocking tone and the ridiculousness of the situation startles a laugh out of Minho, rising up in his belly and tickling his throat. Aris begins to laugh, too, when Minho fails to stop, and it isn’t exactly the wild, carefree laugh Minho witnessed at the campfire, or the soft reserved one, but somewhere in the middle. Regardless, it feels like a win. The sun is out now, and Aris’ posture has relaxed considerably. The gentle wind ruffles the leaves and small flowers on the crown, disturbing the fine hairs at the very top of his head.

Aris looks at him, eyes narrowed with mirth and darting back and forth from Minho’s face to his lap, cheeks pink. Minho finds the sight unmistakably fascinating.

“Okay,” Minho says, clearing his throat and tugging at the line attached to the fishing lure still clutched in Aris’ hands. “I’ll take that back.”

Aris tightens his grip, pivoting in his seat. “No, I think I should keep him.”

“Uh?” Minho says, “Excuse me, that’s my ugly fishing lure.”

Aris pulls Jesus further away, grinning. Minho tugs on the line again in reprisal. “Well, he likes me better.”

Minho scoffs, “Bullshit he does! You’ve known him for, like, five minutes and he’s been my guardian angel my whole life!”

“Well,” Aris says, through giggles, tugging at Jesus some more, “Well you obviously don’t appreciate him enough, so maybe I should take him for a bit.”

“Is this mutiny?” Minho says, pulling the line. Aris laughs and pulls back, “Is that what’s happening right now? Because if it is, you should know I’m not going down without a fight.”

Maybe it’s the sun in his eyes, or the scent of salt on the air, or the cool stones around Aris’ wrist brushing against Minho’s knuckles when he pulls the line closer, reeling Aris in, that makes him lose grip on the wire and let go. Aris is, obviously and very understandably, unprepared for this change and pulls the line with no less strength. This sends the lure overboard and into the clear blue depths.

“No!” Aris shouts, too little too late, and leans precariously over the side of the boat and rocking it dangerously to the side. Minho flails wildly and leans back to steady it, heart beating in his chest.

“ _Shit_. Oh no,” Aris is saying, woefully, still leaning over the side of the boat and crown still somehow on his head. He turns back to Minho, eyes wide and shoulders hunched, looking as if he expects Minho to toss him over as well. “I am so sorry. It just slipped out –”

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Minho says, rushing to comfort, not liking the ghost of fear that flashed in Aris’ just then, not one bit, “Look, don’t worry about it. We’ll get it back.”

“Get it back?” Aris frowns, “It’s in the _water_.”

Clearly.

“I …” Minho stares at the blue water below them, and then back at Aris, and then at his feet. “It’s okay,” he says and begins to take off his shoes and socks.

Aris looks remotely scandalised. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to go in after it,” Minho says, obviously, lining his shoes up side by side on the seat, and moves to stand. Aris reaches out and grasps his wrist.

“You’re going in after it?”

“Are you just going to keep repeating everything I say?” Minho asks, staring down at Aris’ hand on his arm. His bottom lip is curled and he has a worried crease between his eyebrows. For one crazy moment, Minho considers reaching over and smoothing it away with his thumb.

“You can’t just –” Aris struggles. He looks stressed. “You can’t just jump in. What if there’s sharks?”

Minho raises an eyebrow. “Sharks?”

“Or, I don’t know. Bigger fish.”

“If there was anything dangerous we would’ve been dinner ages ago,” Minho says.

“But,” Aris says.

“You want to leave Jesus down there? Let him be shark bait?”

Aris glares. His grip around Minho’s wrist is like steel. It’s honestly impressive. “You said there weren’t any sharks,” he says.

Minho waves his free hand, trying to pull himself loose, “Figure of speech. Listen. It’ll be fine. Jorge will be crushed if we don’t bring that thing back. Maybe.”

This shakes something in Aris’ eyes, and, slowly, he loosens his grip on Minho’s arm one finger at a time. He says, “What if you can’t find it? The tide might’ve pushed it further out by now.”

Minho moves his gaze to the ocean floor below. It isn’t as shallow out here. But, that being said, it isn’t exactly deep. Minho gives himself a generous 75% chance of finding the lure. His eyes snap back up to Aris.

“Tell you what,” he says, and points to the three stones on Aris’ wrist, “If I find Jesus you have to make me one of those.”

Aris blinks at him, and then down at his hand, lifting it for Minho to see as if making sure that it is, in fact, the item in question, and not some other invisible object that has not been aware of until now.

“One of these?” Aris says. Minho bites his tongue.

“Yeah, one of those,” Minho says, smiling.

Aris’ shoulders drop. Like he can’t quite believe it, he raises an eyebrow, and drawls, “You mean these? The things you hate?”

Minho, like an asshole, “Yep. Exactly. Those little shits.”

Aris’ mouth presses into a thin line as if he is trying very hard not to say something.

Minho, gripping the edge of the boat, says, “Right. So, deal?” and, before allowing Aris the chance to utter any sort of response, lifts himself up and dives into the water. Aris’ faint shout is smothered by the ocean waves.

The water is far colder than he expected and the brief shock freezes Minho’s limbs and renders him stiff, leaving him to bob underwater like he is a fishing lure himself. Blinking rapidly and shaking his body out of it, Minho flips over in the water and dives deeper to search his surroundings. It is halfway between surface and sandy sea floor that Minho ponders the growing realisation that this is what his life has come to; fishing the ugliest lure in existence out of the ocean for a cute guy in a boat, who’s sitting on an empty bucket of fish, and wearing a flower crown.

Honestly, it doesn’t bother him that much at all.

Locating the lure among the shells and the coral is easier than Minho had expected; the figurine’s little brown cap and half-charred gun stick out of the sand, metal wire catching the sun and thin fishing line undulating gracefully in the water. Minho swims toward it. Off-hand, he wonders how long he can hold his breath for, and when he even learnt to swim. These are two very important points Minho probably should have considered before swan diving into the ocean, but. Live and let live, and all that.

Hand curling around the line, Minho yanks Jesus out of his sandy confines and, while he’s there, plucks a couple of shells, too, just for the hell of it.

He meets Aris waiting eagerly on the surface, holding the edge of the boat in a white-knuckled grip. He starts when Minho pops his head once again above water, leaning back and rocking the boat with him. Minho gasps, lungs not quite burning but almost there, grabbing the boat with his free hand and shaking his hair out, a thousand droplets landing on Aris and making him flinch.

“Did you …” He begins, “Find it?”

Minho pretends to look crestfallen for only a moment until Aris’ face droops. Then, he breaks out into a grin, thrusting Jesus out of the water, and presenting him to Aris in all his glory. “Ta-da,” he says, hammily.

“Oh,” Aris says, awed, “Wow. You … found it.”

Minho feigns disappointment. “You doubted me,” he says.

“No, I,” Aris cuts himself off. He laughs and shakes his head incredulously, taking the lure from Minho and depositing it into the boat before turning back to him. “I was wrong,” he says. “Here, I’ll help you out.”

Aris holds out a hand for Minho.

The warmth of Aris’ fingers surprises him when he takes his hand and, kicking wildly in the water, Minho grips it tight to pull himself up and out. The angle is odd, and he doesn’t quite know how to pull himself up. They nearly tip the boat again, forcing Aris to rear back once and sway forward with the momentum. Minho ends up half out of the water, leaning over the rim of the boat, with his face three inches from Aris’.   

For a long moment neither of them moves; locked and frozen, Aris’ eyes wide and freckled cheeks stained a spotty pink, and for a second Minho is worried he’ll let him fall back into the water. That is, thankfully, not what happens, and, clearing his throat, Aris looks away and pulls Minho up with both hands, arm muscles straining with the effort. Minho shakes his hair out again once he is safely in the boat, dripping everywhere and ruining all of their equipment.

“Thanks,” he says, mumbling, clearing his throat.

“No problem,” Aris replies, hair hanging over his eyes.

“Right, um.” Minho runs a hand through his hair, pulling at the fabric sticking to his chest, sure to turn almost unbearable soon enough, and says, “I think we should call it a day.”

Aris nods, snapping to attention. His posture is back to perfect.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he says. Together they paddle back to shore, fishless. Jorge won’t be happy, Minho thinks. Maybe they can snag a few tunas from someone else’s boat when they’re not looking. Or, he can say it was horribly quiet out today and hope the other boats have little enough fish to support his lie.

“Well,” Minho chirrups regardless, when they have successfully reached the shore and dragged the boat out on to it and, yep, Minho was right, his clothes are particularly second-skin-ish right now. “That was fun.”

Aris stares at him like he’s crazy, and places the paddles carefully under the first seat and does not say anything. Minho deflates. He could at least play along. Aris looks worried when he finally meets Minho’s eyes.

“I’m really sorry,” he says.

Minho walks toward the allocated fishing hut. Aris follows him. “Look,” Minho begins, turning and giving Aris a warm smile, “It wasn’t your fault. We were both screwing around out there, it could’ve happened any time. And besides,” Minho takes the figurine out of the bag and waves him in Aris’ nose, which wrinkles at the bridge as he leans away, mouth curling, “Look at him. He’s fine! It’s going to take more than a little swim to shake this guy.”

Aris hums, smiling softly, and taps Jesus’ cowboy hat. The action is so ridiculously endearing it leaves Minho wanting to jump right back into the water. 

“I still can’t believe you actually found it,” Aris says.

Minho rolls his eyes. “No faith. None. Hey,” he says, “Remember you owe me, now.”

Aris glances down at his wrist and touches the centre stone, lightly. Minho follows the movement. “You seriously want one of these?” He says, with an odd tone of voice. Minho flushes, knowing that Aris is, without a doubt, thinking about that day on the beach. Minho isn’t sure if he will ever stop being sorry about that. The rage he felt that day with white-hot, and blind, and building up inside him like a pebble on a mountain of issues which had been threatening to fall for days on end. The mountain fell, and it fell on Aris.

He barely remembers the anger, now. All that is left is guilt, and …

“Yes,” Minho says, depositing all of their stuff in its allocated corner and walking back out of the hut, Aris beside him. “I do. And I expect it to be nice – no half ass diamonds.”

“Sea glass,” Aris says, “And opal.”

“Whatever. Oh, hey,” Minho says, suddenly remembering and digging into his pockets to retrieve the two shells he’d collected from the ocean floor. He underarms them at Aris, who fumbles to catch them, startled, “Found these while I was down there. Thought you might like ‘em.”

Aris appears startled, clutching the shells to his chest with unbalanced grace. His hair flops in his face, thin lock of hair curling free from the rest and tracing the edge of his right cheekbone and, for the second time this hour, Minho fights to keep his hands to himself.

“Thanks, Minho,” Aris says, smiling slowly.  

“Don’t mention it. Now you really owe me, huh?” Minho tries to joke, except his sleeve pulls tight and awkward around his shoulder with the slightest bit of movement and he groans, pulling at his shirt. Now, in the sunlight, he is painfully aware of every inch of his clothing stuck to his skin, chafing and making a very unpleasant noise with every step that he takes.

“Shit,” he says, “I gotta change. I’m –”

Minho pauses. Aris is still staring at him, an odd expression on his face, seemingly unaware that he’s doing it. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he bites the corner of his lip, softly, deep in thought. The gaze, for some reason, pierces the surface of Minho’s skin, leaving him extremely self-conscious in a way he has never felt before. Minho stares back and, feeling his cheeks begin to redden, waits for Aris to realise. When the moment stretches on past casual and into something else entirely, Minho decides to clear his throat, the back of his neck tingling.

This works, at least.

“Yes!” Aris says, shoulders back, chin up, pole back in its place, “Yeah, of course. I’ll, uh.” He looks away, “I’ll get right on that.”

Aris walks off, a little faster than ordinary, up the beach and only managing to trip on the sand a couple of times. Minho watches him, and his crown of leaves and flowers disappear around a string of huts and waits, patiently, for the feeling in his chest to subside.

It doesn’t, until much, much later. Until he realises that he has never seen Aris nervous before and that is, in fact, exactly what he had been. Minho is not quite sure what to do with this new information, but it doesn’t feel bad. Not in the slightest.  

 

 

The next few days are a strange time for Minho, who feels light and airy. No one in the community has gotten into any arguments or disputes lately, which is great, and Aris is acknowledging his existence once again, which is fantastic. Frypan picks berries from the trees behind them (safe, this time, you only make that mistake _once_ ) and Brenda stands over Minho, Gally and a few others as they put together yet another hut, barking orders from the top of a platform like the 5 foot dictator that she is (though, Minho thinks, some of the guys don’t seem to mind too much). 

One afternoon, when the sun is kissing the horizon at that magical time to cast rays of gold and orange light over Safe Haven, Minho meets Aris outside the infirmary. They stop short of bumping in to each other, and it is that brief moment of fumbling ( _Sorry – My fault! – You go first – No, it’s okay, you go_ ) that Minho is thinking about right up until he falls asleep, and the way that Aris’ blushing face had looked in the setting sun, his laugh bubblier than the sea foam.

Everything seems to be sunshine and daisies for the first time in, well. Ever.

That is until Alex gets into a fight with some kid named Matthew, who Minho knows purely as the antagonist from the eavesdropped conversation he’d heard between Aris and the boy that day in the infirmary.

Matthew punches him in the face.

It is a whole spectacle; Alex hits the ground hard with a loud _Gasp!_ from the audience to add to the drama of the fall, and everyone is on high alert in an instant. Gally rushes forward and pulls Matthew – twice Alex’s size and half of Gally’s – back, lifting him in the air by the back of his shirt like the T-Rex that he is, and away from Alex.

“Hey!” Matthew shouts, legs kicking wildly for the second that he is airborne, and thrashing at Gally. 

“Ease up.”

“Get _off_ me, man!”

Gally pushes the kid further away, not concerned over his protests in the slightest. Aris rushes to Alex, now standing, and begins checking him for injuries. Minho runs towards them.

“The shuck happened?” Minho asks when he catches up to them. Aris is bent over to match Alex’s height, gripping his shoulders.

Alex says, “He hit me.”

“Are you okay?” Aris asks, deep worried crease between his eyebrows.

“I’m fine, Mr. Aris. It doesn’t even hurt,” Alex says, wiping at his fast bruising cheek with the back of his hand. His lip is bleeding like he put his teeth through it on impact, and he looks as if he might cry.

Minho’s heart sinks. He hesitates for a moment, contemplating, before placing his hand on Alex’ shoulder as well, right beside Aris’. Their fingers brush together. Out of the corner of his eye, Minho see's Aris turn to him.

“I didn’t do anything!” Matthew is arguing behind them, and Minho looks over to see Gally is rolling his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, the tight hold of Matthew’s shirt unrelenting, “That excuse only works when everyone didn’t just see you punch a guy in the face.”

“ _What is going on here!_ ”

Everyone jumps, Minho included, Alex quite almost diving behind Aris and Minho for safety and, up ahead, Minho sees Matthew try the same with Gally. Vince is marching toward the small gathering with ire plain on his face. Jorge is close behind him, visibly calmer. The two men walk into the centre of the gathering and look around at all the faces surrounding them, who shrink back almost instantly. Jorge turns and catches sight of Alex’s small figure between Minho and Aris, his head ducked low and hiding a nicely forming black eye. With Aris’ arm wrapped protectively around the boy’s shoulders, he puts two and two together.

Vince turns on Matthew and begins to interrogate him while Jorge works on dispersing the group. Brenda appears out of nowhere to help, a little breathless, with a deep crease on her forehead; the same that she always gets whenever one of her 30 or so children are messed with. 

“Everything okay?” Jorge asks, face stern and expecting nothing but the truth. He will be tremendously disappointed.

Alex looks at his shoes and nods, “Yeah.”

“No,” Minho cuts in, sighing, and coming around the front to stand before Alex, who appears frightened. “No ‘yeah’. Listen, kid,” he says, mirroring Aris and leaning down to match Alex’s line of sight, one hand on his shoulder, “You gotta speak up or else this is just going to keep happening. Guys like Matthew? They’re idiots. Trust me, we had a whole lot like him in the Glade. A never-ending supply, they just kept comin’ up like farmstock. Mostly hung around Gally.”

“Hey –!” he hears Gally’s affronted cry and ignores him. 

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that,” he throws a thumb over his shoulder, “isn’t going to stop until he realises he can’t mess with you anymore. And look, it isn’t easy, because the fact of the matter is there’s always going to be someone bigger than you who thinks they can push you around and get away with it. So,” Minho gives the boy’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze and smiling warmly, “what you do is make sure they know that’s not going to happen anymore.”

“But …” Alex looks unconvinced, “What if that doesn’t work?”

“Trust me,” Minho says, “The minute you start to act like you don’t care, they stop seeing you as an easy target and lose interest in picking on you real fast.”

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely. Especially when you have these guys looking out for you. And me.” Minho adds, “And then, when you’re older, you’ll be able to do the exact same thing for kids who are being picked on by shanks like that, too, and look out for them.”

Alex is smiling, still a little teary-eyed, and surprises Minho by leaning forward and throwing his arms around his neck. Minho is shocked frozen, stuck in a half crouch with his arms hanging awkwardly by his side, not knowing how to respond. He’s never been hugged by anyone under five feet before.

In the end, he settles for a stiff pat on the back, but Alex seems to appreciate the sentiment, anyway.

“Thanks,” Alex says, pulling away.

Minho clears his throat, “No problem, kid.”   

Finally, his eyes find Aris’, who is looking at him quite like he’s never seen him before. They are wide, a clear green in the bright sunlight, and Minho finds it increasingly difficult to look away the longer the minute stretches on.

What breaks it is a soft chuckle behind him. Jorge has an odd expression on his face that is a cross between deeply amused and proud, when Minho turns to look at him.

“Alright,” he says, “Why don’t we get this sorted out. Sonya,” he calls out and Sonya, standing with Harriet and glancing between Minho and Aris with strong intrigue, jumps to attention, “Can you take Alex to get cleaned up, please?”

“Of course,” she says, smiling brightly and jumping forward and holding her hand out for Alex to take - which he does a little too eagerly, blushing. Before they leave something passes between her and Aris, silent and lasting only a second, before they break eye contact and she walks way with Alex in tow. Aris becomes very interested in the grass at their feet, and Minho pretends he hadn’t seen anything.

Jorge leaves to join Vince, who is giving Matthew a very stern talking to, and Minho suddenly has no idea what to do with his entire body. 

“So,” he begins, fake coughing, hoping Aris will speak so he doesn’t have to.

He comes through.

Minho loves him a little.

“That was really good, what you did,” Aris tells him, “I think he needed to hear that. Especially coming from you.”

Minho raises an eyebrow. “Coming from me?”

Aris is back to looking at him like he’s stupid. It’s not awful.

“Oh, come on.” Aris says, “All these kids look up to you. You’re like their hero.”

Minho’s eyes widen, and he feels the back of his neck become hot. WCKD feels like a century ago and just yesterday at the same time. It’s true he has blocked out most of the experience, and is furiously pushing down the rest, but the memories that keep on creeping through the cracks, holding on by the tips of their fingernails.

Others are harder.

One of them those memories consists of being thrown into that one room every day, and seeing each one of those kids’ faces as they dragged him through the hall, and back at the end of the day.

“Well.” Minho starts, digging his hands into the pocket of his pants, and not quite knowing how to continue with the rest of that sentence. Aris doesn’t look like he excepts anything, still staring at him.  

He notices that Aris has something clutched in his fist.

“What’s that?” Minho asks.

“Hm? Oh,” Aris hides his hand behind his back. “Nothing.”

Minho raises an eyebrow, and says, grinning, “Is that for me?”

“No,” Aris says, “I mean yes, but –” Minho laughs “– it’s not done yet.”

Minho says, teasing, “Taking your time?”

Aris glares, but the curl of his lips leads no malice. “No,” he says, “I’ve just been tied up with my hammock.”

“You’re still trying to fix it?” Minho says, incredulous.

Aris looks mildly embarrassed.

“No, it broke again,” he says.

Minho shakes his head, laughing, “Man, you have the worst luck. Why don’t you –” And this is it. This is the moment he loses his mind for good. Minho says, “Why don’t you use mine again.”

Aris looks put out. “No, I don’t want to take you out of your bed again. I appreciate it, really, and you’re sweet, but –”

“No, I mean,” Minho begins, heartbeat quickening a little at _You’re sweet_. “I meant do you want to share mine? Uh, for now,” he adds quickly, when Aris’ jaw drops open, “Until you get a new one. So nobody has to sleep on the ground.”

Aris snaps his mouth closed. He says nothing for a long minute, the longest of Minho’s life, during which he imagines all the possible ways Aris will knock him down, and wonders if he’s pushed too far and crossed a line.

All of his fears are shattered when Aris looks him in the eye, and Minho feels somewhat like did that night of the bonfire, when he’d apologised to Aris and Aris had stared into his soul, took all that he hid and twisted them.

This time, however, he does not shy away.

Aris nods. “Yeah,” he says, smile catching the end of the word and splitting it into two syllables, “Good idea.”

 

 

In the dark, that night, Aris crawls into his hammock. Minho had initially moved over to give him as much room as possible but had not considered the logistics of sharing a hammock in comparison to sleeping side by side with someone on a flat surface. He falls right back as soon as Aris is in, and the both of them roll to the centre. Minho can feel Aris shoulders shaking as appose to seeing them, feel his warm breath on his neck as he laughs silently.

“You okay?” Minho asks, grinning, unable to stop. Aris hums, nodding. His nose brushes the column of Minho’s throat and gives him goosebumps.

One of Aris’ hands lies sandwiched between their chests, and the other rests comfortably over Minho’s hip. Taking a risk, Minho mirrors him and laces his arm over Aris’ waist until his knuckles graze the back of his T-shirt, just over his spine.

“Cool,” Minho says, “Well. Goodnight.”

“Minho?”

Suddenly, Minho is very aware of how close they actually are; chest and thighs pressed against each other, their toes touching beneath the blanket. The details of Aris’s face slowly sharpen in the darkness as his eyes adjust, all of three inches away. He breathes out through his nose, and it shakes the fine hairs across Aris’ forehead. Slowly, Minho reaches up and brushes them away.

“Yeah?” he says.

Aris’ eyes flutter once, and he is biting the corner of his mouth nervously. “Promise not to say or do anything?” he whispers and, before Minho can respond, leans forward to kiss him.

The press of his lips is warm and sweet, timid and questioning, but with a certain kind of boldness that is so very _Aris_ it fills Minho’s chest up with so much fondness he thinks he might burst. It is over too quickly, both of them leaning away much too breathless. They stare at each other in the darkness, and Aris surprises him by kissing him again, just once, before turning over in the hammock and settling in.

Minho laughs quietly to himself and falls asleep.

 

 

Aris’ hair smells like the ocean. That is the first thing Minho thinks when he wakes up in the morning. The second is _Shit. We slept too late_.

Minho blinks heavy eyes open to filtered sunlight, and a near empty barracks. Aris is curled against his side, lightly snoring, warm and comfortable. Minho allows himself a moment to lie there while his brain slow dances itself out of sleep, trying not to think of the implications of everyone waking up before the two of them, who are very unambiguously sharing a hammock. Minho’s ears pick up movement somewhere, and he blinks his eyes open to a blurry image of Frypan. 

His friend is kneeling down and shuffling through a bad at the foot of his hammock. When he catches Minho’s eye a very slow, wide grin spreads across his face. Eyebrow cocked, he presses the pad of his thumb over the tip of his index finger in the _Well Done_ sign.   

Minho rolls his eyes. Aris hums in his sleep and snuggles closer.

 

 

Thomas wakes up later that same day.

A knot, one that Minho has felt inside of him the moment they landed in Safe Haven, growing tighter every day, finally unravels.

 

 

That night they host the remembrance ceremony. Minho has been sticking to Thomas for most of the day like he is stapled to his clothing, watching out for signs of anything out of the ordinary, making sure he doesn’t trip, and passing him water before he asks. Minho holds on to the fact that Thomas will ask him to stop if he finds the attention too much, or irritating. Thomas never does.

Aris smiles at Minho furtively from the other side of the group, all of their friends between them, leaning against Harriet’s knees and fiddling with his bracelet idly (Thomas’ bracelet, the identical one, is still around his wrist, Minho is pleased to note. He never asks where it came from). Minho catches his eye once or twice during Vince’s speech. Aris holds his gaze as long as he pleases, every time.

When the moment arrives to carve the names into the stone, a sombre mood falls over the community. Thomas' hands shake when the knife is passed on to him, and he makes it two letters into Newt’s name before he has to stop. Minho completes the final two. Later, Minho finds him sitting alone at the edge of the main area, deep in thought with a small tube clutched in his hands that Minho feels looks vaguely familiar.

Minho takes a seat beside him, Thomas starting out of his thoughts and slipping the object into his pocket. Minho asks him how he is, and Thomas just shrugs, and. Yeah, okay.

“You guys actually did it,” Thomas says, eyeing the settlement in wonder, “You built all this.”

“Yeah. We really did,” Minho says and, taking the social queue, bumps his shoulder with Thomas’ and adds, “With no help from your lazy ass.”

The joke has the desired effect. Thomas huffs one of his soft, breathy laughs, and ducks his head. It's crazy how much Minho missed him.

Someone clears their throat, then, and Minho looks up to find Aris standing in front of them, posture relaxed but with a question lingering in his eyes. His hair is pushed out of his face and his cheeks are flushed, sleeves rolled to his elbows.

Minho stands up, quickly.

He doesn’t need to look back to know that Thomas is watching them.

“Hi,” Minho says, breathless for no particular reason.

“Hi,” Aris returns. He leans around Minho’s shoulder. “Hey, Thomas,” he says, “Feeling better?”

Thomas gives a two-fingered wave and an equivocal nod in response.

“Can we talk?” Aris asks Minho, “Somewhere, uh,” he pauses, glancing down at Thomas, and at Frypan, Gally, and couple others now approaching. “Somewhere else?”

Minho looks down the darkness of the beach, lit by the moon and a trail of torches that stretch on for half a mile East. He nods towards it and steps closer to Aris, who does not lean away.

“Sure,” he says, “Down that way?”

Aris follows the direction with his eyes and smiles. As they are leaving, Minho hears Thomas’ gobsmacked whisper to Frypan, who takes Minho’s former spot beside Thomas, “How long have I been asleep?”

“So,” Minho begins, fiddling with the frayed cuff of his pants. They’ve settled on a rock a little way down the beach. It may or may not be the one Aris had been sitting on the day Minho came and screamed at him like the lunatic that he is, and Aris may or may not have done this on purpose.

“Last night,” Minho continues, “Before we … You told me not to do, or say anything.”

Aris says, “Did I?”

Minho looks at him.

Aris says, acutely ashamed, “I did. I just … I was worried. I didn’t know how you’d react and if you didn’t, well.” Aris sighs, frustrated, and looks out at the water and the moon. Basically, everywhere but Minho, “I didn’t know if you’d even want me to do that. And I didn’t want to deal with it right at that moment.”

“And if you still don’t,” Aris adds, fast, “That’s fine, too. It’s totally cool, I really don’t mind.”

Minho frowns. “If I don’t what?” He says, “Like you?”

Biting his lip, still glaring at the moon as if he has a personal vendetta against it, Aris nods.

It is – inappropriately timed, yes, but when has anything in Minho’s life ever been _appropriately timed_ – the funniest thing he has possibly ever heard, and begins to laugh. Aris looks like he thinks death would be kinder.

“Dude,” Minho says between giggles – _giggles_ , what has this boy done to him? “I gave you my bed and then went and slept on the beach. I fished a fishing lure out of the ocean because you looked like you were about to break down into tears.”

“I wasn’t about to –” Aris tried, cheeks spotted.

“I let you sleep in my bed again. While I was in it,” he emphasises the last part strongly, just in case all of this still isn’t hitting home inside Aris’ surprisingly dense skull. “You think I don’t like you? I …”

Minho pauses. The next words are like vipers on his tongue; lethal and could potentially ruin him, but Minho is willing to push through the pain if it means a desirable outcome.

He takes a deep breath and says, “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for weeks.”

Aris’ reaction is slow and drawn out, and it is nothing but pure torture to Minho. “Wow,” he says, eventually, breathes it out in wonderment, and then, “That sounded like it hurt.”

“You –” Minho almost falls backward onto the sand, “You are unbelievable.” Aris is laughing, “Don’t laugh, you little shit!”

“Me too,” Aris says, and Minho shuts up. “I mean, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, either.”

Something lifts in Minho’s chest and fizzles out. It allows him to breathe, finally, the relief palpable.

Aris continues, “That’s why it took me so long to give you this. I wanted to make sure it was perfect.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a long necklace with a pendant on the end that catches the moonlight, and glows. No, three pendants; one opal, another sea glass, and the other …

“Is this one of the shells I gave you?” Minho asks, and Aris nods.

The small shell is secured onto the necklace bedside the opal. Occasionally it will slip over the stone, giving the illusion of a clam and a pearl. The sea class shines translucent in the moonlight.

Minho slips the rope chain around his neck. He turns to Aris, who is back to looking nervous and says, “It’s amazing, Aris. I love it. Thank you.” Them he asks, “Where’s the other one?”

Aris lifts his wrist. The other shell, a very small conch, now hangs beside the sea glass and opal.

Aris shifts closer to him on the sand until their shoulders and knees are touching. The cool night wind blows Aris’ hair against Minho’s cheekbone, tickling his ear, and Minho suddenly understands why all those Gladers needed to carry around the talismans: to hold on to something worth holding on to, worth remembering, even long after it’s gone.

“You know,” Aris says after he’s laid his head on Minho’s shoulder, after they’ve laced their fingers together, after they kissed, “Vince was telling me earlier that it’s Christmas.”

Minho hums. “Is that so?” he says, “Well. I really like my gift.” 

“Good.” Aris says, “Now what do you have for me?”

Minho grins, and with a finger under Aris’ chin, lifts his head and kisses him, deep and purposeful. They kiss until the wind cools and makes the hairs on Minho’s arms stick up, until Aris shivers and pulls the cuffs of his sleeves down over his knuckles, and he snuggles closer for warmth.

When they pull away Aris narrows his eyes at him, face close and pupils dilated in the darkness. He’s the best thing Minho has ever seen.

Aris says, cheeks flushed, “That was super cheesy. You know that right?”

Minho can only laugh and kiss him, again.   

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> To note: I don't actually know how long Thomas was asleep for at the end of TDC so I took some liberties. 
> 
> Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone! But especially to Bia, whom I had the pleasure of creating a gift for. I really hope you enjoyed reading this, because I certainly had a ton of fun writing it!!! ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡


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